Re: GNU/LinEx, Debian, and the GNU FDL

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

      ... the fact that either you've stopped endorsing Debian, or
    you've become more vocal about it.

I have never endorsed Debian, because ever since it became mature
enough to be technically suitable, it had the problem of recommending
and including non-free packages.  Of course, the other alternatives
have generally been worse.  So I have not endorsed any GNU/Linux
distribution in recent years, except, briefly, GNU/LinEx.

I've said this many times over the years in responses to questions at
speeches.  ("What GNU/Linux distribution do you recommend" is a common
question.)  The reason I mentioned the issue in that interview is that
I thought I had found a distribution I really could recommend.  That
was good news and I wanted to talk about it.

The FSF has not endorsed any GNU/Linux distribution in recent years,
and perhaps never, but my memory is not certain.

      I believe Debian is seriously interested in all that.  As far as I
    can tell, though, Debian already produces a distribution that the FSF
    should recommend, it's called Debian GNU/Linux and contains no
    non-free software.

While nominally Debian GNU/Linux does not include the non-free
software, the non-free software is distributed from the same server.
We cannot recommend one without effectively recommending the other.
Further, the distribution itself surely contains references to that
server, so putting a copy on a different server would not solve the
problem.

The change that I asked Debian developers to make, some years ago, was
to separate the two, such that we could refer people to Debian
GNU/Linux without in the same act referring them also to the non-free
software.  This would make it possible for us to refer the public to
Debian GNU/Linux.  If in the future Debian GNU/Linux does not include
the GNU manuals, this reference could not be wholeheartedly positive,
but we could still make the reference.